Rebuilding Burned Bridges aside ficlet: Storm
by mayachain
Summary: In the R-b-Br-'Verse, many things have changed. For Ororo, it's not easy to reconcile the school she inherited with the place she remembers.


_**Rebuilding Burned Bridges aside ficlet: Storm**_  
New Bridges-'Verse! I'm so relieved to finally have this finished. This part doesn't follow the timeline of the last two snippets I posted in this series, which is why I named it _Bridges_ and not _Babysteps_.

Title: Rebuilding Burned Bridges aside ficlet: Storm  
Author: mayachain  
Featuring: Ororo Monroe, background Bobby/St John  
Rating: PG  
Summary: _If you ask me - no matter what the raindrops say - the presence of sparks I hear coming your way in your life is a good thing. _(Jubilee in R-b-Br, Part 9)  
Note: You might want to re-read Mystique's _R-b-Br_ prequel, since to my mind, at least, there's an interesting contrast between the two women. Also, please bear in mind that this is not how Bobby sees Storm.

---

**Rebuilding Burned Bridges aside ficlet: Storm**

Officially, the twenty-five people of odd ages that come to the mansion every three weeks are part of a group formed in the spirit of inter-species communication. Thanks to Kitty's computer skills and Beast and Leech's serum, the authorities that pride themselves so much in the keen eye they keep on the Westchester children have no idea that twenty-two of those twenty-five freak-loving pacifists are 'not entirely human'.

*

_She knows. How could she not know? Ororo Monroe may be lying to herself at times, pretending something in his voice gave him away as far back as the first time they spoke after the hospital explosions. It may have been the fourth, or maybe the third call. Still, she did figure out Iceman knew exactly where Pyro had disappeared to pretty soon._

*

There is no part of her life that Storm resents more than aiding and abetting in the administration of Hank's vaccine to former students, people she's come to know, to anyone. They tell her that as long as _they_'re the ones doing it (and she hopes, hopes to every god she ever heard of they're the only ones) they can make sure no-one gets pressured into taking it. That they can still control it.

*

_Logan will probably never say it to her face, but the reasons behind _his _inaction are easy to draw from sentiments like _Don't know how many people I killed when my head was brainwashed_. Ororo knows anger, knows feeling hurt and hopeless and misunderstood, but it's not the same, not the same._

*

The day-to-day business concerning her inherited school is running smoothly. The young X-Men work well together, there haven't been any missions gone terribly wrong for quite a while. The notable difference is not in performance but in morale, depending on whether they've gone with or without Iceman.

*

_It stings, it does, that she has the exact location of the evasive pyrokinetic terrorist, yet she cannot act on that knowledge if she wants any chance of keeping what she has._

_While she knows better than to believe this will last indefinitely, so far, at least, the disappearance of high-ranking Brotherhood members from the ever-changing battle-map has been a good thing._

*

Most vaccination days, Ororo makes sure to either be away from the Mansion or to lock herself in her office. It always takes a day or two before Rogue will concede to speak to her again, and whenever Rogue feels the urge to become Marie for a while, the entire student body suffers from the painful way they dance around each other.

*

_If she were to push it, Storm could assemble a task force or even guilt Bobby into turning Pyro in. It's not something she can afford, though: Not only would she and the X-Men lose Iceman permanently, Ororo would lose the man Robert Drake has become and everybody else with him._

*

With Bobby's and now Jubilee's and Warren's absence, the others could use her help in the clinic, but she who never had a problem assisting Jean whenever the need arose cannot bear the sight of the needle sliding into flesh, cannot bear the thought of what it means.

*

_So she lies, blandly talks to him of other things, holds on to the hope that his judgement is as good as Kitty believes, and pretends she doesn't know._

*

She wishes she could make herself understood, make the others see that the pressure and repression are not going to improve if they waste time actively helping mutants repress who they are. It makes her sick to know she has anything at all in common with Magneto. She has no idea when or how she lost that battle.

*

_The X-Men have always operated mostly alone, but the 24/7 are forming connections across the globe, employing Warren and Jubilee as ambassadors to form alliances with open-minded twenty-something mutants in Europe, South America. Warren's next semester (Storm thinks) is supposed to be spent in Japan._

*

She wishes she could talk to Scott, because Scott knew Charles like no-one else, knew more about his connections than Storm has had any chance to find out, about his plans for the then and future X-Men. He would have told her, after Scott seemed to have gone off the deep-end, but there hadn't been any time.

*

_She'd resented Scott towards the end, because he was allowed to fall apart after Jean, had left her and Charles and _Logan _of all people alone with the children. It would be easier if she could claim _Magneto _had killed Charles and Scott, but both Charles and Scott have been taken from her not by Eric Lensherr, but by Jean._

*

He and Charles and Jean had been dead, and it had only been her (and Beast) and Logan. Ororo had resented Cyclops so deeply that she'll never quite get over the anger at him dying, but she sure wishes he were here now, even more than Charles whom she'd known she would lose some day.

*

_Only Rogue might stay loyal to her if she and Iceman ever came to an open fight._ Sometimes, it feels like she already has a mutiny on her hands.

*

_End._


End file.
